In Full Bloom
by CompletelyComatose
Summary: He had been on the verge of tears until that purple heart met his nose. Now everything's been restored to its former state, but Marco feels. . . different about Star. Why? Post-Mewberty Series. Starco!
1. Chapter 1

_**Okay, phew, first chapter fic. It's going to center on the aftermath of Mewberty as well as Star and Marco's relationship. It's going to take some actual canon aspects of the original show, so keep that in mind. Enjoy! Starco all the way!**_

It was almost as if nothing had happened a few hours before.

He was walking home with Star just like any other day, only this time he was listening to her gush over the attainment of her new wings. She loved them, she claimed, and that they would soon blossom into ones that would actually bring about flight.

Marco had to keep himself from pointing out the fact that she had, indeed, flown during her Mewberty phase with full, violet butterfly wings. It was weird that only two tufts remained on her back from the experience, but he'd learned not to question how puberty worked in Mewni.

As for the collatoral damage she'd done to the school during the transformation, Glossaryck had fixed it all up with a snap of his fingers. The lockers and hallways were cleared of every trace of the gossamer webs and none of the students could remember any of the events that had occurred moments ago.

Of course, it was all the work of a spell.

However, Marco wanted to know why the blue embodiment couldn't have done the same thing for Star's case.

"I only answer to magical princesses." the miniature freak had reminded Marco, before diminishing into sparkles that were absorbed by Star's book.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, still vexed by the fact he had been unable to do anything. Not a single thing to ease Star out of her trance, and it still stung his insides. He had been totally worthless.

He sulked silently to himself.

Meanwhile, Star had somehow transitioned into the topic of breakfast and listed all of the foods she knew that she could consume so far.

"Can you make those waff-less, Marco? I heard those are reaaaally scrumptious with syrup and butter!" Star hummed as she skipped along the sidewalk. Her blonde hair flowed behind her with every leap she took, and she looked like she didn't have a care in the world.

Marco tried to laugh. "It's called waffles, Star." He corrected her. "And I can make one if we buy a waffle maker, maybe. Or we can just buy the frozen packages from the nearest store."

"Amazing! Ah, I'm so excited!" Star squealed.

The pair turned to the right to head down the path that led to the Diazs' doorstep.

The brunette opened the door with the keys and let Star inside the house first. Star rushed up the staircase with alarming speed, set on going to her bedroom to possibly look up more delectable Earth cuisine.

After shutting the door behind him, Marco stayed on the door matt. He found himself wondering what to do next. There was so much on his mind that he wasn't sure whether he should lay on his bed and let the thoughts circulate or sit in front of the TV and lose himself in his favorite program.

He took in the sight of his living room, thinking it would allure him, but it didn't.

He was stuck, and his head buzzed with the sporadic thinking. Doing nothing for a prolonged period of time unintentionally began to make him speculate.

As an ordinary human, what more could he do to help out Star? In their everyday battles with the monsters, his karate techniques came through for him, but how many more times could they fend off the enemies? His agility on its own was bound to fail him one day, and even people with incredible staminas eventually tired out. So could he somehow use Star's magic to-

No. That hinted the chance of the tentacle arm incident being repeated again, which he dismissed as unorthodox.

He started to gnaw on his lip. He was immediately aware of his safe-guy instincts being kicked up to full throttle.

He was an insanely cautious teen, he knew, but he couldn't help that. The event of nearly losing Star evoked an overwhelming impulse to hold the girl close and keep her safe.

 _Whoa, what?_

He staggered back slightly. Hold her close?

"Marco, Marco!" Star called to him loudly. Her elbows were propped on the railing, and her hands were pushing up against her cheeks. Her aqua blue eyes sparkled, which was her tell-tale way of portending that she wanted something from him.

"Yeah?" He said somewhat hollowly.

"Can yoouuuuu possibly make me your awesome nachos?" Star requested in a sing-song voice, straightening up. If anything was off with him, she didn't seem to notice.

"Sure. Just give me a sec." He responded. He tried to ease the tension in his body as his feet carried him to the kitchen. He was conscious of Star's eyes following him, and the last thing he wanted was for her to develop any suspicions.

Maybe this would detract him from those weird thoughts of his.

* * *

 _ **Sorry for making this chapter so short D:**_

 _ **I appreciate reviews!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Ah, I'm not all that proud of this chapter since I'm still relatively new at stringing together a solid story.**_

 ** _But it's here! And I'm already half-way through fleshing out the third chapter._**

 _ **Thanks to all who reviewed, faved, and followed! You guys rock!**_

* * *

He emptied a jumbo bag of tortilla chips into a large bowl as Star lay with her arms and legs strewn across the couch.

His mega awesome nachos were to _die_ for, and she reveled in how they tasted to her especially inexperienced taste buds.

As a princess from Mewni, she was only served the finest of meals at the dining table. The food was incredibly delectable, but Star was jaded by the lavish entrées she'd gorged herself with daily for 14 years.

Earth's multifarious cuisine was a nice change of pace from all of the luxury. Its variety ensured that people would never tire of it.

The nachos could be stomach-churning and immoderately greasy if she ate too many them; besides that, the aroma and the product of experimental flavors were amazing.

Coincidently, she was watching the cooking channel on the television. The existence of a TV network specifically designed to teach about food delighted her.

A chef was hurriedly mincing onions without batting an eye when the blade narrowly missed the tip of his finger. _Chop chop chop_ and _boom_ \- the diced uniform fragments would be swept to the side. Star was impressed with the unmistakably practiced skill.

"Marcooo!" She drew out the final syllable of his name. She rocked forward in order to have a better view of the screen. "Check this out! He's pretty good at cutting the onions with his knife!"

When she was met with nothing, she slid off of the couch and planted her feet on the carpet.

She made a beeline for the kitchen to check on his progress, thinking he was too immersed in preparing the nachos to respond.

The princess poked her head inside, expecting to see Marco adding finishing touches to the treat.

Instead, he was leaning against the counter and eating a bland chip. A full bowl was set on the edge of the table, like Marco had been derelict in placing it somewhere where it wouldn't topple and spill its contents all over the kitchen floor.

Marco's face was solemn and his eyes were distant, as if they saw beyond the wall opposite of him.

She wasn't accustomed to this Marco, to the one who spent too long staring off into space. He kept his head on his shoulders in class, with it hovering over an exam or assignment. He always said a straight A student never spaced out in class, back when he'd been making a point that Star was remiss in her studies a few weeks back.

She liked dreaming about unicorns and rainbows and kicking Ludo's butt a lot of the time, yeah, but she wanted to put her imagination to use when reality didn't hand her everything she wished to do on a silver platter.

In contrast, Marco liked to stay firmly grounded on terrain in school. He thought about the reality: the stringent side and joyful side of it.

Whatever, back to the point - Marco was being hypocritical and weird.

"Marco!"

Marco's eyes ballooned to the size of saucers. He was still in the middle of chewing when he darted to the refrigerator.

He slammed the door of the fridge after he grabbed the desired ingredient and shoved it onto a pan that had been waiting on the stove all along.

The latino was catching his breath when Star raised her eyebrows, torn between amusement and annoyance.

He was funny, with that determination to redeem himself for slacking off.

She passed the entrance and filched her own tortilla chip from the bowl. She pushed the bowl towards the center of the table afterwards to eliminate the possible hazard.

Star was standing in front of her friend as she was munching on the morsel, swallowing it. "What's up with you?"

Marco hesitantly turned one of the knobs on the stove, alighting a dim circle of flames beneath the pan. The cheese started to slump where it sat.

"Nothing. Why do you ask?" His tone strived for an airy casual that he failed to pull off.

"You don't usually do that."

"Do what?"

Playing dumb was an implied custom on Earth, and it was one of many practices that Star didn't like. Why would you want to play off as stupid anyway? It just didn't make sense to her.

"Daydream." She supplied. "Unless you're thinking about Jackie, but you normally drool when you do."

"What?!" He formed an x with his hands and vigorously shook his head from side to side. "I do _not_ drool when I think about her!"

"Yes, you do." Star smirked. She soon let the satisfaction of humiliating him become forgotten when she said, "But seriously, is there something on your mind?"

She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. She took slight umbrage when Marco flinched and brushed it off of him.

"I'm fine. There are just a ton of tests coming up next week and I'm trying to find time to study."

"Mmhm. . " His education again. She had to give him props for being so smart, but she wished he would learn to sort out his priorities. Working wasn't all there was to life in high school. The dark abyss of responsibilities would approach them later in life; not now, when they were adolescents wanting to have fun.

Marco's eyes fell upon the cheese that was already melted and currently coating the sizzling surface of the pan. "It's really not a big deal. I'll get back to making the nachos now." He turned to face the stovetop with furrowed eyebrows.

She felt the need to lecture him about kicking back and relaxing, but she hated to nag him further. Especially when he already looked so bothered by what ever thoughts were circulating in his head. Star retracted her irritation toward their inane conversation and swiftly marched out of the kitchen. "Call me when they're ready." She said when she was back in the living room. Not that Marco could hear her, but whatever.

She moved up the stairs instead of staying within closeness of Marco and his cooking. She got to her bedroom and twisted the doorknob to open up the entrance to the protruding section of the home she had created with her magic wand.

It didn't take too long to wonder what she should do next. She reached into her cloud-shaped bag and pulled out the cell phone she preferred to use over the house telephone. She had (stolen) borrowed it all this time in hopes that her crush would dial her number to speak with her again.

She figured he'd have initiated by now, but that wasn't really the case.

So, the blonde took it upon herself to give Oskar a call to transition their relationship to the next level. The best they had done so far was a short, 5 second exchange, but she was set on pushing it further.

She clicked the numbers she'd memorized from the 'Recent Calls' category and put the phone up to her ear.

A whirring tone - that Marco had taught her was the ringing on the receiver's end - repetitively dinned.

A pleasant yet robotic voice told Star that the "number she tried to reach was not available."

She pushed against the bridge of her nose in chagrin. It was more likely that he had been strumming the piano guitar too loudly to discern his ringtone.

Star snapped the phone off before she could be instructed to leave a message, in no mood to appear needy. Persistence wasn't always respected here, and her fair share of hair-tearing experience with Tom proved that Oskar probably wouldn't like it either.

She lay on her pillow-laden bed, phone forgotten. She worried about Marco and his unwillingness to spill out his dilemma.

Maybe she could conjure up a bunch of goofy spells to cheer him up like she'd done previously, but that would only gain a momentary relief for him before drenching him in negative reminders to chain him down again.

It was a challenge to get him up and running again, but Star clashed with challenges headfirst. If she could beat monsters to a pulp each day, she could make Marco optimistic.

The smell of cheese wafted into her room, signaling that the meal was ready.

As she hurried down the stairs for the second time that day, she promised herself that she would do everything in her power to cure Marco of his dampened mood.

* * *

Star rolled the pencil to the edge of her desk, barely stopping it from plummeting the third time she wheeled it in another direction.

Ms. Skullnick was thumbing through a women's magazine with a glossy cover, forgoing the stereotypical lecture that had a soporific effect on students.

Ironically, her classmates were bored _without_ the teacher's oration but only because they were coerced into silence by the green-skinner teacher. She hated it whenever kids talked while she was painting her nails or applying balm to her puffy lips.

It was independent study time, and this was when Star doodled drawings on the corners of her paper or played with the erasers and pencil.

She once tried to get Marco's attention by tossing one of the objects towards him, which bounced off of his scalp and tumbled to the floor.

He only scratched his head, but later raised his hand, much to Star's shock.

"Ms. Skullnick?"

"What?" The disfigured woman growled. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"I need to use the bathroom." Marco elaborated.

"Fine." Skullnick burrowed her face back into her intense reading as Marco got up and strolled out of the classroom without so much as a look in Star's general vicinity.

Star silently griped. She was still at odds with his behavior, which was _clearly_ yet to be solved. Not to mention, he was acting like she didn't exist. Was he that preoccupied? To the degree where he couldn't care or try to discern what physically hit him?

Her resolution to get him back to his former self stood like a bastion - proud and tall - but she was stuck wondering what she could do to present appropriate results.

Gasps permeated the room and a stifling heat warmed Star's body. It outright alerted her that something wasn't right, especially when the desk in front of her began to levitate.

The unquestionable sound of crackling flames caused Star to trail her eyes upward, to the grey-skinned demon whose presence always left a foul taste in her mouth.

"You." She spat vehemently.

"Hey Star." Tom took off his sunglasses, revealing crimson pupils. A glowing red crescent materialized just above her ex-boyfriend's palm as he gestured. "I'm here to take you to the Blood Moon Ball."


	3. Chapter 3

**_I was forcing myself to wait to upload this chapter, but then I couldn't so - well - shit. Canon events are twisted by none another than yours truly (oh no)._**

 ** _Anyway, it may be a while before I put up chapter 4 because of school starting up again and all. High school blows._**

 ** _Sorry for OOCness and choppy transitions and everything else that irks you guys._**

* * *

"Get out."

The next thing she knew, she was dragging him to the school parking lot.

She flung him into the carriage that he used as a mode of transportation, not feeling a pang of compunction when he fell against the door.

"Star-"

"Out!" She reiterated acridly. "Take your stupid horse and your fire-" She dropped incendiary cement into his lap. "-and get out of my life."

She was being harsh, a part of her warned her, but she _never_ bestowed any of her happiness on the likes of Tom.

Her verdict of him wasn't exaggerated: he veiled a major temper behind that suave smile and he was a control freak who threw a tantrum when things didn't go his way. _He_ had been the bane of the little tango they had called a relationship; he was twisted and foul to her when she wasn't submissive to his wishes.

He was only decent when he endeavored to impress others, like he was currently doing.

She stomped away, but not even 3 seconds passed when a bed of inferno took hold of her back and transferred her into Tom's cold arms.

He surveyed her with an embellished smile, working charms that brought many women to their knees.

Star didn't waste another second pulling out her wand and directing it at Tom's third eye.

"Whoa, whoa, Starship!" He exclaimed nervously. "No need to get testy." He gently allowed her to return to the safety of the ground.

The blonde patted down her dress and brushed out any imaginary dust from the green fabric. "You're not one to talk." Star then said darkly, folding her arms. "You know that."

"It happens once every 667 years, Starship." Tom informed politely, abstaining from addressing her biting comment. "The Blood Moon Ball is a special event."

Star sighed. The word "no" was obviously not included in his vocabulary. "That's great, Tom. But you have to understand that I'm not interested. I was in _class_ back there, and my teacher isn't going to compliment me for being asked out by you for the zillionth time."

To this, he took visible offense to, looking cross. His arm, which she noted was hidden behind his back, twitched suddenly, and he smoothened his features, detaching from his transient annoyance.

Star tried to see what he was concealing but soon found out she needn't have when Tom revealed a soft ball of pink fur in his hands. It wiggled a bit and two long ears protruded, indicating that the furball was a bunny. She gaped at it wondrously, surprised that the demon carried such a cute creature.

"I've been anger free for 53 days." He said, tugging his outer garment to the side and jutting his chin to an egregious badge that read the very words. "I have a guy named Brian who helps me out with my - ah - pique. You can meet him at the ball. He's pretty cool." He carefully lifted the hands that cradled the rabbit. "Wanna pet my bunny?"

She indeed wished to pet it. Very badly. She loved anything and everything that had an endearing semblance to it.

Star instinctively crouched, leveling her eyes with the bunny's. Her fingers approached the pelt of Tom's pet, imagining the softness and feathery strands of its coat. "Well, it _is_ adorable. . ."

She froze, instantly regaining her common sense.

She clenched her jaw and pursed her lips into a thin line.

He'd almost had her. The bunny was enough to waver her into accepting his invitation to the ball; the only thing holding her back was her resolve to help Marco. His cold-shoulder treatment only fueled her concern for him, and heading to the underworld with a demon wasn't the best judgement when she had a friend in need.

Also, he'd freak out if the _demon_ she'd spoken badly of courted her.

"Look, Tom." She started to finalize while she straightened up. "You can't bait me. I'm sorry, but I don't want to go to the ball."

She was already shaking her head when Tom's eyes glowed into a searing bright hue of red.

* * *

Taking in fresh air was what he'd craved for after being cramped indoors for a long period of time. The slimy odor of the damned nail polish remover swamped his nose all of the time; he was yet to become acquainted with it.

An assuring, afternoon breeze drifted around the open campus. It tickled the spaces between his fingers and ruffled his hair, disorienting it and eliciting a garbled protest from the teenager.

The weather was amiable and kind to him otherwise. The previous day, the sky had been clouded gray and there had been no gales to cool off the disturbing humidity that had been cast upon Echo Creek. The sun hadn't so much as peeked through the wispy curtains and its absence complemented the dreary atmosphere of Star's rampage.

Today, it was indisputably sunny.

Marco was venturing through the school, sticking close to the walls of the buildings. Being too overt with his ambling boded an interrogation from shrewd administrator and he knew that was unpleasant from a personal standpoint. He never stopped shivering at the mortification of _that_.

He'd been submerged in inordinate thinking until a piece of paper jutting from the thin slit of a nearby locker caught his eye.

Marco sauntered toward it and slightly hunched forward.

He expected it to have the harsh, straight lines of filler paper, but the two edges were more tender and the paper was an off shade of white.

Following natural inclination, Marco brusquely shoved a finger into the small opening that the locker allowed. He soon drew out a purple paper thin heart that had been lodged in the crevice.

His first thought was a grim one: that there was yet another reminder of the events the day before and that there was no way to escape the internal fear that he had almost lost her.

But then he remembered that Glossaryck was supposed to have gotten rid of every bit of evidence of Star's Mewberty.

He had a bone to pick with that guy, seriously.

Instead of discarding it in hopes that no one would care enough to pick it up and ask of its original whereabouts, Marco let it slip into his right pocket.

With a part of her (barely) weighing down his jeans, Marco paved a route to follow back to the classroom. He well exceeded the maximum time he could take on his bathroom break, even though he wished to extend it further. A classroom environment _demanded_ that he drown himself in work, and that conflicted with his need to think more about Star.

The obsession over the near loss of Star wasn't quite gone yet, and he was even more jittery whenever he was in proximity of her.

The nacho scenario hadn't helped; it only complicated his relationship with her. His heart had virtually stopped when she'd touched his shoulder, which was a weird reaction because his body never spasmed like that.

Except. . he might have liked it?

It was foreign and unwelcoming when he first fathomed the response, but it had been missed after he'd pushed her away.

It had translated to his system as painful, but he later relished it.

Great, he was turning into a masochist. What was next?

In hindsight, he was doing a poor job of keeping to himself and disabusing Star of her assumptions that he was depressed. He wasn't a pessimist, he was just thinking a lot. A night of sleep hadn't lessened his frighteningly deep thoughts at all and Star was refusing to leave his mind.

Was it because it had hurt when he had presumed she was gone for good?

It did. He had jumped ahead into the future, imagining how dull life would be without waking up to a new surprise each day and seeing her grin mischievously at her own pranks.

He had been lethargic and unable to comprehend how he had persevered before her arrival to Earth. Had he put up with silence every day he'd walked home from school? Did he cringe to his parents' touchy-feeliness alone for 14 years? Did he deal with being labeled as the "safe kid" every day of his life without having the credentials to prove his peers wrong? Was lacking the knowledge of other dimensions and whole new worlds something that was commonplace?

 _Yes._ He had lived that kind of life.

But ever since Star came to Earth, he celebrated the idea of punching monsters to oblivion or stepping foot into an alien dimension that bore little resemblance to his home. He accepted _most_ adventures with open arms.

The concept of weird was good and humbly received.

Marco was about to enter the classroom when he heard the unmistakable clangor of the bell.

He drifted to the side before he could be trampled to the stampede that drove out of Skullnick's room.

Marco sneaked in while his teacher was busy blowing on the base she had completed for her nails and snatched his bag from his desk.

He bounded out with his backpack safely secured in his possession. He fanned the general area above his nose, trying to dissipate the putrid scent as he absorbed the scene of students exiting the school with and without companions. Some traveled in groups and others glued themselves along the lockers, like Marco had done.

It was then that it hit him Star was not anywhere among the crowds in his line of vision. She had not been in the classroom either.

Which was fine, since it was not like there was an implicit arrangement that she stay and wait for him to return just like he did for whenever she was outside during her own bathroom break leering at Osk-

"Ms Skullnick!" He had raced back inside in a flash to ask, "Have you seen Star? Where is she?"

The troll's nose scrunched up. "Like I know!" She fired back at him scathingly. "One of her 'magic friends' came in and disrupted the study session! She left and didn't come back!"

Magic friend?

He first considered Ponyhead, who always loved to party and be her recalcitrant self, but she had been sent to St. Olga's the minute her father had caught her. According to Star, that school was inescapable and even incarcerated its wayward princesses in confinement chambers. So she was out.

It could've been some buffoon with an idiosyncrasy to strap wings to his or her back or. . . one of the beasts of Ludo's army. One of those monsters might have forced Star to ditch.

An illusory bucket of cold liquid poured over him, dousing him in dreaded realization that she was in trouble if that had been the case. He grimaced.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Yikes. A month. Didn't expect it to take that long, but alas, school got in the way.**_

 ** _Anyway, so so sorry for the wait. I really wanted to make this chapter longer (and better) but I had to cut it off somewhere. But it's still longer than the norm so hopefully that's something._**

 ** _Oh! One last thing. Kudos to The Forbidden Bond by cococomb16! It's the sister fic to this series and its focus is on Blood Moon Ball instead of Mewberty XD It's really amazing and it's packed with angst and Starco so give it a read!_**

* * *

A monster prompting Star to get out or be assaulted in a compact room was quite new. Even the latino had never thought Ludo and his army would strategize in this hiatuses between each battle. They were always the type who popped up in Marco's backyard and screamed war cries reaching the windows of Marco's house.

Marco liked innovation, but not when it flowered in the minds of behemoths from other dimensions.

He made out a bag beside Star's desk, a remnant of her short retreat from class.

Marco quickly sped there to gather up the indigo bag with neon spikes his friend had chosen to carry around in the academy. It was a lightweight, bereft of the textbooks and notebooks that were mandatory for all attending students. There was no use in criticizing on that, really.

The teenager ran out once again after bidding his teacher a lackluster farewell.

The hordes of students had cleared and he was alone once more.

He briskly walked to the school's wide entrance with a body pumped with wary adrenaline.

Star was missing and it was his fault for wandering outside of class while she had left. A collusion of sheer panic and disappointment scolded him for not being more attentive of the potentials dangers to her.

He was to blame for her absence.

Flimsy bits of logic in his mind did remonstrate that she was likely back at home, safe and sound, and that she had forgotten her things was all. Mewberty wasn't a physical altercation that happened twice, he was certain, and she would've told her if there was a chance she'd start an uproar again.

But until he saw with his very eyes that she was unharmed, he couldn't relax the heaviness weighing down his shoulders.

* * *

A raven-haired girl hauled an enormous, cinder sack from her closest to the patch of floor beneath her bed. It would've been unwieldy if it had been anyone else moving the massive spell book around, but this was a _special_ girl.

Heat curled off like tides from outside and through the windows, hitting every corner and crevice imaginable. The bag was harder to cling to than it was before, gleaning perspiration that came off of her palm and making her grip rather slippery.

Janna swiped her other hand across a forehead ridden with sweat. The temperature was augmenting to higher degrees, which was the only thing that was making this harder than it had to be. The mornings were chilling and one could make out his or her own breath interchanging with the cold air, while afternoons drenched everyone in mugginess.

But she liked living in California because, although there wasn't a predictable balance between hot and cold, it was still much more bearable than other states she'd visited or lived in.

Janna pushed the edge of the bag again so it would disappear under her mattress.

She got up from her crouched position, satisfied that her mission to hide the big old thing from her parents was complete. They weren't easily stupefied by her foolery as people who had dealt with her ever since she'd been born, but Janna wasn't about to find out if a mystical book of spells was pushing it.

Janna took off her beanie to tame her unkempt hair with a few strokes of her fingers. She covered her head up with the hat again afterwards.

She whistled a tune with a jovial ring to it as she left the book alone to bask in the dust bunnies and old toys she had dropped on the floor as a kid.

* * *

He stumbled to the clustered parking lot, where only the staff vehicles remained. He scanned the panorama of the area perfunctorily, until he saw Star Butterfly struggling to push something into a black antique carriage.

"Star!" He ignored the embarrassing, prepubescent crack of voice that had slipped out of his larynx.

The princess of Mewni turned her head back at the call of her name and she broke into an eager grin. "Marco!"

The world blurred around him as he rushed to her.

He was panting when he was next to her, gassed from bolting so fast, and rested a hand on the old carriage. Something told him that he wasn't just physically tired from the sprinting.

"Oh, jeez, you're fast." Star laughed good-naturedly. Marco savored the twinkly, music-like quality of her chuckling. "What's the hurry, Marco?"

He steadied the flurry of heartbeats and recovered enough to say, "Where were you?" He snapped his head up, vexed. "I was looking for you! You left class after I went. . . " His words died when he noticed a scurrilous demon with sharp horns was encased in a hunk of ice. The effigy was horrifying and instilled fear inside of him.

He let out a strangled gasp that sounded like a fusion of a cat dying and a parrot squawking. He sputtered, "What-What the heck is that?!"

It had clearly been rubbed the wrong way and planning to attack Star mercilessly.

Star awkwardly coughed, as if unsure what to say. But then she said, "Erm, well Marco, this. . . is Tom." She finished off her introduction to the devil-esque being tentatively.

Something clicked into place, spreading unwonted understanding throughout Marco's body. "Demon Ex-Boyfriend Tom?"

"Demon Ex-Boyfriend Tom." She repeated, confirming his guess.

Marco stared into the abysses that were Tom's eyes. They were void of distinct pupils and had emitted what he supposed to be an unearthly glow before being suspended by Star's magic. A surge of legitimate distress for Star led him to jump into drastic action, by grabbing his friend's shoulders and shaking them. "Are you okay?! Did he hurt you?!"

"I'm fine, I'm _fine_ Marco!" Her echelon of voice rose so Marco would stop. "He wasn't any trouble. He just wanted to ask me to the Blood Moon Ball is all, and he got-" she tensed, "-mad when I declined his invitation."

Her reluctance didn't help. "He really did not harm you? In any way? No burns or-" Marco tried to check her arms and hands but Star tugged them away with a stern expression.

"Marco, he didn't lay a finger on me, I swear." She insisted. "It's nice that you care." With that, a sincere smile crept into her features. "But I can handle him. I dated him, after all."

A thrill pulsated within towards her observation of him, but it was hard to cease his fretting.

Tom wasn't a bad guy from what he heard, but a demon with the power to burn everyone on target was an unsettling enemy that Marco didn't want confronting Star.

Also. . .

 _I wasn't here when I should've been._

God, he hated himself.

". . _Okay._ " He mumbled, contradicting his own notions. "I was just looking all over for you and I panicked, I guess."

He was dying to ask more questions regarding her welfare but then he'd never find the motivation to cut himself off.

"I'm so sorry, Marco! I hope you can forgive me for wandering off like that." Star apologized, abashed.

"It's fine." His lip turned upward unconsciously, outside of his range of control. It wasn't really her fault for being interrupted by a demon who had a nasty penchant for getting riled up.

The princess of Mewni rocked back and forth on her heels, all of a sudden looking coy. "So, um, you were kind of acting weird today. Yesterday too. " Her eyebrows creased. "You haven't told me what's been going on, Marco."

 _Shoot._ He hadn't been thrown off-guard by the induction, but he'd hoped they'd veered far from that subject.

 _What do I say, what do I say. ._

"Um, I've just been really. . " He could feel sweat gleaning on his forehead just from being put on the spot. He had absolutely no clue what pretext to tell her.

Sensing his discontent, Star probed him for answers anew. "Really what?"

For a moment, Marco mulled over replying to her question truthfully. It wasn't like she would mock him for how distraught he was during the sickening silence following her departure into the sky. She continuously briefed him with the fact that they would always have each other's backs; certainly the trust to speak what was on their minds to one another fell in the category somewhere as well.

They were close friends by now, and he could feel a telepathic glare emanating from Star towards his pertinacious will to keep his mouth shut.

—

Star was anticipating his answer, which she had spent quite a bit of time waiting on as he formulated it.

Marco lifted his chin. "Do you remember anything that happened during Mewberty?" He presented her with a question rather than an explanation.

Concluding that he was building up to one, Star placed her back against the carriage, not wasting another moment to say, "No, I don't."

It had been a blackout for her. There were fuzzy chips of what happened, but that was all. Consciousness returned to her when she had awoken in a pile of perfectly-shaped violet hearts. "After a few guys walked by, I felt dizzy and I think that's when the boy-craziness took over. . " she trailed off just as an odd (and dark) thought struck her. "Did something happen to you, Marco?"

Marco fiddled with the strings of his hoodie rather aimlessly, rubbing them between his left thumb and forefinger. "No, but you scared all of the boys in the school. That includes me." He admitted. "You were attacking people and caging them in lockers."

Disturbing tremors tingled in her arms as she shook her head self-deprecatingly. She'd learned from her parents years ago that Mewberty could send a Mewman spiraling out of control, but she could tell from Marco that the side-effects of "growing up" had been more than a little destructive.

"I should've done a better job of staying away from lockers." She said somberly.

Mewberty was a necessary stage for adolescents of Mewni, so her phase had been inevitable, but she couldn't help but wish it didn't whip up an unfulfillable hunger for boys. Wrecking the school and inculcating fear inside of everyone wasn't worth it.

"Star, it's okay. That Glossaryck guy cleaned it all up, so there's really no harm done." Marco spoke up to reassure. The conspicuous damage of school property and short-lived trepidation of the students didn't faze him that much anymore, since it had been solved without repercussions. "What I'm trying to say is that. . " he propped himself on the coach alongside her. His shoulder coincidently brushed against hers. ". . I've been thinking about you."

"Me?" Star felt slightly uncomfortable (and flattered?), for reasons she wasn't sure of.

"Y-Your flying, I mean!" Marco amended hastily. "You almost left me back there, and I thought you were gone for good." A displeasing burn ached under his skin now that he'd heard himself speak the truth with his own ears.

"You thought I'd leave you?"

"Yeah." He said dumbly.

To his ultimate confusion, Star smiled compassionately.

"Look, Marco," Star took hold of his forearms, clutching them firmly in her hands. "Mewberty can be a bit "destroy-the-school-weird" like I said, but it's just a phase. I'm just maturing into an older princess with wings is all." Her smile morphed into a beam. "It doesn't have any negative impact on _me_ , so there's no need to go freak out, okay? I'm perfectly fine. I won't leave you again, I promise." She finished off with conviction.

An impromptu, cozy heat blanketed Marco's tension at this. But a substantial twinge of worry persevered and fueled him to protest, "But Glossaryck said-"

"Don't listen to him." The princess said. "He's not always helpful. He just asks for pudding whenever a magical princess is desperate for something."

"So you would've returned anyway?" Marco demeaned himself for even spending time on Glossaryck. It hadn't been worth it if he had purposely fed him lies all along for poorly-made pudding.

"Yep! And I did, so isn't that what matters?" Star said encouragingly. "Let's not think too much about the what-if's. I'm here, you're here, and we are always ready to have a fun time."

Marco found himself watching her too closely. There was nothing fabricated about the way she acted or articulated her promise. She was so sure; there wasn't a flicker of self-doubt in her irises or a voice that fell flat in delivery. She really believed herself.

A teeny, pessimistic whisper murmured, _How does she know? She's too certain. Anything can happen. Just because she's a princess with a powerful wand doesn't mean she's invulnerable to everything the world throws at her._

 _. . . . So?_

He ground his teeth.

Marco Diaz could be silly sometimes. If one could say Star wasn't strong then neither was Marco. He couldn't surpass a wand that could blast narwhals at monsters in the face. Heck, he hardly rivaled a wand that could discharge a nuclear combustion with _butterflies_.

Without a wand, Star had battled neck and neck with monsters since her childhood.

He knew this all very well. Yet, he'd gone and pretended like Star was some damsel in distress and he'd played the stereotypical role of a knight in shining armor.

Marco Diaz could be foolish.

"You're right." He said lastly. "You're still here, and you're more than capable of taking care of yourself. It was dumb of me to not trust you."

"Oh, you're not _dumb_ , Marco." Star said tenderly. "Your heart was in the right place."

She spread her arms in a ubiquitous gesture. "Hugs?"

He wrapped his arms around her, tacitly complying. Marco loosened in their hug, finally calming down after two days of hyperactive-safe-kid mode.


End file.
